Hydrodynamic And Thermohaline Circulation Model And Its Application

Abstract

This article describes the development and application of a threedimensional (3D) multilayer hydrodynamic model of tidal motions and thermohaline circulation. The governing equations were derived from 3D Navier-Stokes equations and were solved using the fractional step method, which combines the finite difference method in the horizontal plane and the finite element method in the vertical plane. The 3D model was first tested against the density current test in order to investigate the performance of the model. Then, the model was applied to the northern part of the Ariake Sea. In the model test, the results of density current were agreed qualitatively with the performance of salt intrusion. In the model application, the hydrodynamic and thermohaline circulation are predicted. The computed amplitudes are agreed within±3% compared with the observations, and the phase angles agreed well with the observations …